Chapter 9

The unofficial surveillance of Ivo Sandoval began on a Thursday, under a light rain that turned the city into a blur of reflected lights, and for the first two days it yielded nothing more incriminating than the predictable routine of a lonely man: the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the supermarket on Saturday mornings, long nights in front of the television screen with the curtains ajar, visible from the discreet camera that Castel's contact had installed on a lamppost across the street.

Irene reviewed the reports each morning, before Ivo arrived at the office, sitting in Castel's kitchen with a cup of coffee that cooled as her eyes swept over grainy photographs and schedules written down with military precision. There was something deeply disturbing about watching someone's life reduced to that cold collection of data, about seeing how eighteen months of knowing them as a person were transformed, under the scrutiny of surveillance, into a set of patterns that could be read in a thousand different ways.

"There's nothing here," he said, pushing the photographs away with some frustration. A man who goes to the gym buys food and watches television. It could be anyone.

"Or it could be exactly the kind of carefully constructed routine that an organized killer maintains to appear harmless. Castel, already dressed to go out, leaned against the kitchen door frame, watching her with that mixture of affection and clinical analysis that was already beginning to feel familiar. The absence of suspicious behavior is not the same as the absence of guilt, Irene. You know it better than anyone.

"I know. But I also know that we are destroying a man's life based on gaps in a resume and an access record that could be explained in a thousand different ways. He rubbed his eyes, the accumulated fatigue of days dividing his attention between work, research, and the entirely new relationship that was unfolding with breakneck speed. I need something concrete, Damián. Something that tells us with certainty if we are going in the right direction.

It was the first time he had used his first name so naturally, without the professional title he usually gave him, and something in Castel's expression softened when he heard it, a brief crack in the calculating façade that he used to maintain even in the most intimate moments.

"We'll have it," he said, reaching over to kiss her briefly before leaving. Today I'm going to press a little harder on the Miranda building registry. Someone in security had to see something that night, even though the camera was out of order. People always see more than they officially report.

Whileft, leaving her alone with the silence of the apartment and the uncomfortable feeling of having begun to build a parallel, shared life with a man she had barely known for a week, while her old life—the office, the patients, the routine she had built over years—slowly crumbled under the weight of research that threatened to have no end.

He arrived at the consulting firm later than usual, and found Ivo already sitting at his desk, working with a concentration that seemed different from the usual scattered energy. She paused for a moment at the door, staring at him without him noticing, trying to read into his body language some clue that electronic surveillance could not have captured.

"Good morning," he said finally, entering the office. Did you get anything from the Yerevan documents?

Ivo looked up, and for a moment Irene noticed something different in his expression: not the usual nervousness, but a kind of tired determination, that of someone who had spent the whole night looking for proof of his own innocence.

"I found this. He handed her a thin folder, with several printed documents. Bank receipts for those fourteen months, with the name of the consultant on the transfers. And an old email from my supervisor at the time, congratulating me on a project. The problem is that the company closed eight months ago, as far as I could find out, and I can't reach anyone who still works there to verbally confirm my employment.

Irene reviewed the documents carefully, comparing dates, names, figures. Everything seemed consistent, coherent with the story Ivo had told all along, and yet a part of it—the part trained for years to distrust all-too-convenient evidence—couldn't help but wonder if this was genuine proof of innocence or a second, more elaborate level of fabrication, designed precisely to sow that doubt he now felt.

"This helps," he said at last, putting the folder away. I'll pass it on to Detective Castel for verification.

"And will that be enough?" There was a genuine urgency to the question, a tremor that Ivo no longer bothered to hide. Dr. Voss, I can't go on living like this. I don't sleep. I check my door lock five times before bed. Every time someone looks at me on the street, I think it could be a policeman following me, or worse.

"I understand that this is extremely difficult.

"No, you don't understand. His voice grew louder, the accumulated frustration finally breaking the façade of cooperation he had maintained until then. You have Detective Castel protecting you, sleeping in your house, investigating all this with resources that I don't even know exist. I only have... this. He pointed to the folder that Irene was holding. Old papers and the hope that someone will decide to believe me before it's too late.

The accusation implicit in his words—that Irene enjoyed a protection that he completely lacked, that the investigation had become uneven from the moment she became personally involved with the detective in charge—hit her with a force she didn't expect. Because he was right. While she spent the nights in Castel's apartment, sheltered, accompanied, living something that was beginning to feel dangerously similar to happiness in the midst of chaos, Ivo faced only the full weight of a suspicion that threatened to destroy everything he had built.